My Car Makes Quacking Noises

December 01, 2025 by Adam in Family

I drove my car up to the Tesla service center.  Very quicky they identified the issue - water damage caused shorts which they're now replacing for nearly $4,000.  On the plus side, they gave me a loaner while my car is being repaired.  It's a newer model with autopilot, so it drove me back home, changing lanes and passing cars which surprised me the first time it happened.  There are a few other quirky new features, such as making a quacking noise instead of honking when the car locks itself.

They need to wait for a part to come in, but hopefully it'll be ready by the end of the week.

Five Day Vacation

December 01, 2025 by Adam in Family

I'm back to work after five days off, every morning starting with a mocha and blueberry pancakes (except the last which was dutch babies).  It was amazing to be able to putter around and do whatever I wanted.  Waking up and telling myself "there's nothing I have to do" is such a luxurious feeling.  Of course I did end up doing a bunch of little tasks - organizing and cleaning and taking care of things I've been putting off. 

The big thing for today is driving my Tesla to Salem to get it checked out.  I'm hoping it's just a simple electrical issue, but it's possible I need to get a hotel and spend the night.  I've already started packing.

The five days off were wonderful.  I saw my eldest kid on Wednesday and had him open presents.  Thanksgiving was great, and we got to meet his new girlfriend.  The crowd was generally entertaining and well behaved, and it was great to hang out with 2/3rds of my sisters.  Sunday Emma came back from the coast and my dad came over to hang out.  His Tesla apparently drove him all the way over from the coast and he didn't touch the steering wheel once.

As for me, I painted and printed minis, worked on my D&D prep.  I cajoled the new players to send me their characters and I started cranking out AI generated images of them doing cool things.  It was a silly good time.

Busy week ahead.  Duncan's sweetie is coming to visit on Wednesday.  Thursday has the heat pump people coming to install our second heat pump.  It's the end of the term for our two college bound kids, so they're wrapping up projects and scheduling next term's classes.  We'll see if Yvonne gets into the EMT program.

Endings and Beginnings

November 24, 2025 by Adam in Family

The weekend has come and gone and already I'm itching to get some time off.  My Tesla woes are back, despite swapping out the battery.  This morning I was supposed to drive to Salem but I decided I'd try and fix the problem myself.  I added some coolant, drove around for a little without alerts, then got the recurring "steering assist reduced" message while backing into my driveway.  I might do a little more troubleshooting but it's looking like it's time to soon give up and book a service appointment during my vacation time.  It's all a little stressful.

Duncan's giant external hard drive is failing.  I'm doing my best to move files off to a new one, though the recovery software says it'll take weeks to finish.  I also ordered a 24TB internal hard drive, with the plan to backup all the other drives to this one.  He's got a lot of things he cares about on that drive, and relies upon me to fix the problem, so it's another thing weighing on my mind lately.

Tomorrow morning I have a customer call for work - they're in Europe and customer support is in India, so we'll see if it really happens.  It's in an area I'm unfamiliar with, so I'm spending the day trying to feel slightly less incompetent.

I had the final D&D session of the 4+ year campaign  on Sunday.  Marty didn't show, but the other players hopefully enjoyed the grand finale rewriting the rules of the universe and defeating the evil villian.  They used a dragon to submerge him in lava, which worked surprisingly well.  While I'm a little sad it's over, it felt like it was time to wrap it up and start something new.

Emma and I had some good hangout time, going to the library, watching Time Team, and sitting on the couch petting kitties.  I'm having fun playing Hades 2.  I'm having fun prepping for various upcoming RPGs.  Jason invited me to a Black Friday board game night.  So life's not all bad.

Mocha Friday

November 21, 2025 by Adam in Family

Well, I hopefully fixed my Tesla with a battery replacement.  I sent photos of the alerts and service screens to both Copilot and ChatGPT, who both thought the low voltage battery was the problem.  Jo and I went by Walmart to pickup a new battery for date night, which isn't particularly romantic, but at least Jo got to look through the sticker aisle. 

The one quirky thing is that there's supposed to be a venting system so hydrogen gas released by the battery doesn't pool under the hood and cause a fire risk.  The previous battery, which theoretically was installed by the service center, didn't have it hooked up.  I didn't have the right attachments to the venting holes, but it turns out drip irrigation connectors work just fine.

My AI overlords tell me I should take care of the low coolant alert next, so I'll try to pick some up and see if that alert goes away.

Yvonne continues to become increasingly self-sufficient, taking herself to appointments on her electric bike.  Duncan's giant external hard drive seemed to be failing, so I got him a new one now that Black Friday sales are starting.  It's crazy how big hard drives are getting these days.  Emma's a working stiff, though she reports she's not as constantly tired as she used to be.  The eldest kid and I had tea with mom this week and got the farm update - apparently the inspectors need more land cleared before a permit is issued.  One day they'll start building.

I've been enjoying playing Hades 2, which is theoretically just a action RPG, but has great story and Greek mythology worldbuilding.  This weekend I have the grand finale of my 4-year D&D campaign - hopefully it all comes together.  I can't stop prepping for upcoming D&D, Mothership, and Delta Green games.  I've been having a great time vibe coding an AI-powered supercomputer - it's wild that we can now talk to computers and they'll answer us back.  I've got more minis to paint for a D&D campaign I'm hoping to start in December.  Lots of fun things to plan for.

Exciting and Chill Weekend

November 17, 2025 by Adam in Family

Saturday was a blast, finishing up our Convergence Delta Green mission.  The players all ended up scarred and battered, with my oldest son's character ending up with Paranoia, but I think they all had a good time.  The threat was maybe contained, or at least blown up, and they lived to fight another day.

Emma and I went thrifting afterwards, returning with some weird things like an old speaker that contained modern equipment stuffed inside.  Emma's been trying to figure out what media to keep her music on, and starting to realize the flaws of cassette players with their warbled audio and challenges recording.

Sunday was extremely chill, hanging out at the house with a short outing to the library.  Unfortunately my Tesla, which has already been having problems, gave a new warning and power steering died.  A hard reset got the steering back, but it was troubling and I scheduled a service appointment a week from now in Salem.  Hopefully I can make it there.

Now I'm back to work, finally getting off call and hopefully returning to a more normal work week.

Vibe Coding Into the Future

November 14, 2025 by Adam in Family

My mocha is beside me, one of the things AI will never replace.  I keep finding things to do with it at work and for my hobbies, though.  I keep cranking out weird AI generated props for my games - Ouija boards, security monitors, sound boards for phone calls with a ghostly presence, music playlists, adventure notes for an Aliens-like Mothership game, and so on.  There's something magical about telling my computer "make a thing" and it does.  It's still rough around the edges, but it's getting better and is usually good enough for a home roleplaying game.

I've been on call this week, which sometimes keeps me busy.  I'll occasionally get useful things done, then have to drop it all to deal with a weird issue.  Hopefully this weekend is quiet as I've got a Delta Green game coming up.  Emma's excited to be lazy for a couple days - it turns out working at the chocolate factory is exhausting work and she falls into bed around 7 pm each night.

Life's generally doing well.  The younger kids are okay, with Yvonne continuing to do the prerequisites for an EMT program.  Jo's somewhat stressed about Wordcrafters, which always runs close to the edge financially.  The kitties are increasingly demanding about getting pets, with Data head bonks a regular occurance first thing in the morning.

Fun Weekend

November 10, 2025 by Adam in Family

I was a generally pleasant weekend, with Emma wandering over Friday afternoon to hang out and start the weekend in earnest.  This time she bought huge volumes of popcorn and the usual chocolate, one of the perks of her current job.

Saturday started with blueberry pancakes, dutch babies, whip cream, and a mocha, followed by the fam descending on the house for a Mothership game.  I'd been prepping for nearly a year, making props and pictures and music and more, so it was almost a relief that it turned out well.  There's something satisfying about starting a self destruct sequence and having it count down for ten minutes in real time as the players scramble to figure out how to get away before their ten minutes are up.

I had some good puttering time over the weekend, printing and painting minitatures for the first time in months.  I'm pondering a new D&D campaign and starting to get things ready to go.  Emma and I also went to the Picadilly flea market and ended up with a wide assortment of treasures to take home, including a cool pre-Walkman portable tape recorder that's going into my next Delta Green game for sure.  Next up was a library run with Emma before she went back to her mom's.

Jo and I worked on the basement where we built some new IKEA shelving and did a big rearranging of things.  It's been feeling somewhat chaotic lately, so we put useful things on shelves and hid the weird things a little better, which is probably a metaphor for life or something.

The Haunting of Ypsilon 14

November 08, 2025 by Adam in Adam's Games

Last Christmas I asked for a tabletop roleplaying game called Mothership, a mix of horror and scifi like the Alien movie from long ago, along with a tiny adventure called The Haunting of Ypsilon 14.  I spent the last year making props and web goodies, slowly building to the point where I couldn't really prepare much more.  With Jason not able to make Delta Green today, I broke out all the stops and told the tale of the working crew of the cargo ship Tempest, dropping off their cargo on a mining station.  Soon enough they were trying to track down Mike to get his thumb print so they could leave, but no one could find out where he went.  They asked around, descended into the mines, discovered his empty vacc suit, found the weird alien pod, and soon the invisible monster was picking off miners one by one.

We lost Francis' android character who had to leave early, who was sucked into the invisible monsters giant maw without a trace.  Sonja, the station chief, nearly got sucked up as well, if not for a quick witted character lopping off her arm before she was sucked up forever.  Self-destructs were set, overrides were bypassed to allow them to leave, and after some final hijinx they made it off the asteroid to relative safety.

Mocha Friday

November 07, 2025 by Adam in Family

I'm really happy that it's almost the weekend.  Work's been more frustrating than usual, with tools breaking and mysterious problems popping up.  It's always a bummer when work feels like work.

Since Jason can't make it tomorrow, I decided to run a Mothership one-shot with the rest of the crew.  It's another roleplaying game in the style of Aliens, with the story being that they're members of a cargo hauler, docking at a mining station to drop off cargo.  I've been making props, web pages, images, and software for months in preparation, so hopefully it goes well.  I'm a little fuzzy on the rules, but they're pretty light and I figure if I have enough magic tricks they won't mind the occasional rule stumble.

I've also started prepping for another D&D campaign, this time with Jason, hopefully BJ, and some others.  For some weird reason I'd rather prep for a game than play a video game myself.  There's just something deeply satisfying in creating something from scratch and getting to show it off.

Life is full of various annoyances.  My Tesla is misbehaving and I should just bring it to Salem for service.  Canada sent back my passport application because I didn't write down the photographer on the back of my picture.  Evenings feel more glum than usual with the darkness.

On the plus side, I think we're getting the state rebate for our second heat pump, so hopefully that gets finished in December just in time for all the tax breaks.  The kids are all doing just fine, as are the kitties.  

Cold Monday

November 03, 2025 by Adam in Family

I spent some time over the weekend to take out the air conditioner in the shed.  Unfortunately I forgot to close the window so it's really cold here this morning. 

It was a good weekend, with Emma and I going to hang out at Hideaway Bakery with her big brother.  The farm house is coming along, his trip to eastern Oregon was fun, and his life seems to be doing well.  Emma and I did a bit of thrifting and our usual library trip, though mostly for entertainment purposes.  Mostly we seemed to watch a lot of Time Team.

I managed a bit of yardwork and general cleaning on Sunday, but wore myself out and mostly puttered around later in the day.  I made another radio thingie and signal tracking thingie for an upcoming roleplaying game.  With the current AI tools, vibe coding these things is shockingly fast as long as you're not too picky about how it looks.

Now it's back to work, where I have to write real code and half my time is just trying to keep my development tools functioning.